Lord Samper's Library

Am I back? Sort of… Things are still busy here (okay, really busy…) so for now at least, you won’t see a post every day; I just haven’t got the capacity for it right now. Every few days though…? That’s a little more do-able, I think. Lets see how it goes ;o) I want to have a little go at ‘Cimmerian September’ for a start. In the meantime though… Reading hasn’t come easy the last few days but I did manage to get a couple of short stories under my belt last night; one re-read and one new. I’ve got some longer books on the go but for now, lets have a little chat about these… ‘The Box’ – Jack Ketchum (Crossroad Press) What is in the box? Our narrators son knows and now he won’t eat; and when he tells his sisters… they stop eating too. ‘The Box’ is chilling, all the more so because it is told in such a matter of fact way. It almost doesn’t matter what’s in the box, it’s the inevitability of that knowledge that drives our narrators family to their death and makes the tale a compelling one. T...

I know, I am still taking a break but had to pop back quickly for this... Posting trailers is a bit of a 'cheat post' thing but with the state of my memory at the moment, if I don't post then I'll forget to watch any number of cool looking movies. So, here we are ;o) I've had an eye open for 'Good Boy' for a while now, the concept really grabbed me, so I'm very happy to see a trailer with a release date at the end. If the dog dies though, I won't be happy. Just saying... 'Good Boy' will be released in October this year.

I'm on call today and today... I got a call :o) It looks like it's all sorted now (fingers crossed) but that's why, a) This post is a little later than normal. b) It's another 'Trailer Post'. Hopefully now things have quietened down, I'll have a little time for reading tonight. Anyway... I'm very partial to movies where heads explode and 'Cold Storage' looks like it will deliver on that front so... Here we are :o) Keep an eye open for this one in 2026.

  Page Count: Fourteen Pages, eight lines and two words (sorry, it has been one of those weeks) I was looking for something short and sweet, to end the week on, and came across ‘Dig Me No Grave’ courtesy of Paperback Warrior’s write-up . Having read it, I can attest to it being short (all of fourteen and a bit pages in ‘The Dead Remember’ collection) but sweet? Not at all and that is meant in the best possible way :o) ‘Dig Me No Grave’ was originally published in the February 1937 of ‘Weird Tales’ and while it has appeared in other collections since then, I read it in ‘The Dead Remember (The Dark Man Omnibus: Volume 2) and also found it in my copy of ‘The Horror Stories of Robert E. Howard. If you’re an e-reading type, you can grab yourself ‘Dig Me No Grave’ over at Project Gutenberg. John Kirowan is woken, in the middle of the night, by his friend John Conrad, bearer of bad news and come to beg a favour. The occultist John Grimlan has just died and Conrad asks that Kirowan att...

Taking a spot of annual leave is great, I should really do it more often. I’m no longer looking after my ex’s cat (both the cat and I are very pleased about that) and I’ve been spending a lot of time with my daughters; can’t ask for a lot more than that from a week off ;o) One thing I haven’t been able to do though is get much reading done. It’s the same old story (no pun intended, unless you liked it…) I’ve got a few books on the go but I haven’t been able to make much headway on any of them. We’ll see if that improves, over the rest of the week, but for now, lets take a look at the films I’ve watched instead. Bit of a mixed bag this time round but that’s the way it goes sometimes. Here goes… ‘Zombeez’ (2023) When bee hives start dying off and dead bodies start appearing in a small Florida town, the local coroner is forced to team up with the apiologist who left her at the altar years ago, to try and solve this deadly mystery. It’s well known, in these parts, that if a movie has ‘zomb...

  According to Amazon, I bought my copy of ‘Paperbacks from Hell’ back in March 2023 and then presumably, completely forgot about it. Easily done, I’ve had a fair bit going on these last couple of years, that and a lot of books to read while it was all happening ;o) Anyway… I’m looking after my ex’s place along with her/my daughters pets, the rabbit with a dislocated toe (she’s been to the vet, there’s nothing they can do with it) and a cat that absolutely cannot stand me. The cat does have good reason for this but… That’s another story. I’m digressing though. Being stuck in a house with two animals that aren’t particularly communicative is exactly the right time to try and catch up with some reading (work too, you know what I mean…) and I figured that ‘Paperbacks from Hell’ would be a good choice for the mini-TBR Pile… Take a tour through the horror paperback novels of two iconic decades . . . if you dare. Page through dozens and dozens of amazing book covers featuring well-dresse...

'Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey' was pretty dreadful but one of those films that you watch because, well... You have to don't you? ;o) I'll be honest, 'Bambi - The Reckoning' looks like more of the same but it feels like a step in the right direction. It does for me anyway, I love a bit of 'animal horror' and that's what the focus looks like here, Not sure it's a 'pay for a cinema ticket' movie but I'll definitely catch it when it's streaming.

Last week was a funny old week, for one reason and another, capped off by having a tooth out at the weekend. I've got a horrible feeling that another couple (at least) will need to come out, at some point, but one step at a time and all that ;o) It's a new week so hopefully things will calm down a bit, hopefully... I didn't do too badly with my reading, last week, but my head was all over the place and when that's the case, I end up going through Prime Video and seeing if there's anything that will take my mind off things. I add films to my watchlist at an absolute whim so there's always something there that will take my mind off things :o) Four films this week, a couple of which were re-watches, let me tell you about them... 'Dead by Dawn' (2020) A suicidal man, in a remote cabin, is suddenly faced with protecting a woman fleeing from three killers. Unable to contact the outside world and with night drawing in, a fight to the death ensues where only the...

  Page Count: 179 Pages It has been a rough couple of months, for reasons that I’ve touched upon (in a recent post) and a few that I’ve deliberately left unsaid; because books are far more interesting to people who stop by here (and that’s the way it should be). That’s the main reason it has taken me a while to get round to books that I really should have picked up a lot earlier. That and the fact that it’s far too easy to distract me at the moment, another book usually does the trick ;o) I’ve had a hankering for a little Sword & Sorcery, just recently, and I’ll never say no to a book with zombies in it. It seemed like the best thing to do then was combine the two and read Brian Keene’s latest foray into zombie fiction, with an added ‘Fantasy Twist’. Or is that the other way round? Either way, I’m glad I finally got round to reading ‘Island of the Dead’. Einar, an enslaved barbarian, plots his escape from a war galley transporting troops and a mysterious weapon to far enemy sho...

  Page Count: 114 Pages I enjoy reading other bloggers’ bookish thoughts but it’s not often that I’ll act on a recommendation. Nothing against you or what you’re reading; I’ve just got far too many books to get through and I’ll be honest, I’m pretty set in my ways with my reading these days. Not enough time to stick with a book I’m not enjoying, and all that ;o) There are bloggers whose recommendations I will act on though and Alex, of ‘Spells and Spaceships’ , is one of those. I’ve read a couple of very good books thanks to Alex’s blog, so when I saw that he’d read and enjoyed ‘Death Cult’ , well… I knew what my next read would be. Having just graduated from college, Jason and Eddie are ready to let loose and embark on a cross-country road trip in the summer of 1984. After some killer partying at a rock music festival in Nevada, they head out into the desert with girls and adventure on their minds. Their situation takes a dark turn, however, when they lose direction and find them...

I bought a few books over the weekend but somehow managed to read very little; a little ‘Judge Dredd’ but that was about it. And that’s the way it goes sometimes, I spent a chunk of yesterday playing ‘Crash Team Racing’ with my youngest daughter and I don’t regret a second of it :o) I did watch some more movies though because of course I did (needed to put a little distance between me and the last week). Let me tell you about them… 'Crabs!' (2022) Mutated by nuclear runoff, a horde of murderous horseshoe crabs descend on a sleepy California town causing Prom Night terror. Against insurmountable odds, a ragtag band of locals devise an insane plot to save their town from the increasingly ginormous crab menace. You can’t go wrong with a film about giant crabs… Can you? Well, kind of… ‘Crabs!’ is a bit of a mess, trying to do a bit too much in not enough time, but at the same time, it just revels in crab based carnage and that was all I was really after. The ending just takes thi...

I didn't manage to read an awful lot, over the weekend, but my comfy chair was still exactly the right place to try and make a little dent in my Prime watchlist so... That's what I did :o) My watchlist has a habit of continuing to grow, no matter how many films I get through (I wonder how that happens...?) but I did get through a few. Let me tell you about them... 'Anonymous Animals' (2020) The balance of power, between humans and animals, has shifted and in the depths of the countryside, this plays out in particularly brutal ways... One of those films where I know nothing about it other than that it has a cool title and that's why I'm watching it. And then the next thing I know, I've watched the whole thing without even thinking about it. I'll be honest, I don't think it's as clever as it wants to be but the no holds barred delivery makes up for a lot and makes for a compelling watch. Bit of a random choice but I'm glad I went for it. 'R...

It’s Friday so you’d normally be looking at a post on whatever I read, on the bus to/from work, yesterday. Not today though… I had a touch of insomnia followed by a day in the office so while I had a book in my bag (I always have a book in my bag…), I was in no state to actually read it. Luckily, I had a couple of Black Library audiobooks on my phone so I listened to them instead. As a rule, I don’t tend to do too well with audiobooks that are hours long and just a narrator narrating. Black Library though, have a nice line in audiobooks that have a full cast, run for just over an hour and are full of immersive sound effects I thought I’d see how that worked with a couple of ‘Warhammer Horror’ tales… ‘The Way Out’ – Rachel Harrison In the midst of a vast gas nebula lies a remote watch-station, hanging silently against a tapestry of dying stars. It sits alone, patiently awaiting lost travellers adrift in the freezing vastness of the void. To such souls it appears as a blessing, a safe h...

Page Count: 88 Pages I hate saying this, because it’s only Tuesday dammit, but this week is already looking like it’s going to be another tough one so I’ve got a funny feeling you’ll be seeing mostly short stories here over the next few days. Maybe a couple of comic books as well. I’ll try and pick some good ones ;o) Today then, lets go to the darkest corners of a grimdark universe that’s already dark enough as it is; what with the constant warfare and all. I used to wonder whether, given the nature of the setting, a ‘Warhammer Horror’ line was over-egging the pudding but I’ve been proved wrong on a number of occasions now. That’ll teach me… I’m used to the line turning out some decent stories so it was no surprise then that ‘The Colonel’s Monograph’ was another one ;o) When invited to catalogue the antiquarian book collection of the late Colonel Grayloc – a celebrated hero of the Imperium – former archivist Teresina Sullo is swift to accept. Grieving for her dead husband, she sees an ...

My reading kind of tailed off towards the end of the week (yet again, I've ended up with four or five books on the go but am struggling to get into any of them) but when I've been able to stay awake for long enough, I have managed to watch a few more movies. And this is the post where I tell you all about them ;o) Quick thoughts today, I've got a few things that I need to get done, one of which is try and catch up on my sleep... 'The Coffee Table' (2022) A couple buy a new coffee table for the flat; by the end of the day, three people will be dead. These events are all connected... Well, damn... I saw 'The Coffee Table' on Shudder and naturally assumed that it would be a movie about a possessed coffee table. I think it's a fair assumption to make...  Gentle reader , 'The Coffee Table' is not about a possessed piece of furniture...  'The Coffee Table' is a very good film (as tense as hell) but not one that I'd easily recommend, due to ...

I've been absolutely shattered this last week (what with one thing and then, several other things all queued up behind the first thing) so haven't been much good, in the evenings, for much more than reading books and watching movies. Which funnily enough, is also exactly what I do when I'm in the mood to be a little busier... I am nothing if not consistent ;o) Anyway... I've spent the last week telling you about what I've been reading. Lets round the week off by looking at what I've been watching. And there haven't been many films this week so this won't be a long post ;o) Here goes... 'Flight 7500' (2014) Flight 7500 departs LA Airport bound for Tokyo. As the flight progresses, passengers and crew slowly realize that they are under attack by a supernatural force and there is every chance now that they won't make it to Tokyo at all... I've got into the habit of having the TV on for a bit of background noise while I'm reading, working ...

I actually managed to finish Ray Bradbury’s ‘The Illustrated Man’ last night (look at me, finishing books that I’ve bought) but there was a lot to wrap my head around there, and there was no way I was going to get all that in a post last night, so… I thought I’d clear my head a little with a couple of Black Library short stories that I found on my Kindle. One exercise in filling in the gaps in the ‘Horus Heresy’ and a ‘Warhammer Horror’ tale that, erm… wasn’t, not from where I was sat anyway. That sounds a little more harsh than was meant. These weren’t particularly bad tales, they just don’t rank highly amongst those that I’ve enjoyed. Still, not a bad way to round off an evening. Here goes… ‘ Massacre’ (Aaron Dembski-Bowden) Shunned by the rest of the Legions after the destruction of their home world, the Night Lords have fought without their disgraced primarch Konrad Curze for many years. But now the self-proclaimed ‘Night Haunter’ has returned and will lead them to the backwater ...

The days are pretty much relentless at the moment, what with one thing and another (and then another, and then yet another), damnit. Nothing this blogger can't handle, there's just an awful lot of it and I'm really tired (which, funnily enough, is one of the 'things' I'm having trouble with)... Typical really ;o) Oh well, just a couple of days and it's the weekend. I haven't been good for much, in the evenings so, while I have read a couple of books, it has been mostly about the movies again. I'm cool with that, so long as the movies are half decent ;o) Most of them were half decent, not all of them though... 'Bait 3D' (2012) A freak tsunami traps a group of people in a submerged grocery store. Not only do they need to escape the rising water level, they must also contend with the two Great White Sharks that are trapped in there with them... A little bit of a cheat as I've seen this movie a few times and knew exactly what I would be getti...